December 10, 2013 | permalink
(Originally published at Ericsson Business Review on December 10, 2013.)
Just Two Questions… to Greg Lindsay, Senior Fellow of the World Policy Institute, and Director of its Emergent Cities Project
In what ways will developments in ICT, such as intelligent networks and the cloud, most shape life in 21st-century megacities?
Done right, networked cities promise to heighten the density and intensity of urban life by tying previously disconnected people, environments, and activities together. In India, for example, SMS-connected auto-rickshaw networks create mobility on demand for passengers and higher wages for drivers. Here in New York, apps such as Foursquare, LiquidSpace, and Tinder can help me find a coffee shop, an office, and maybe a date around the corner – where I might never have noticed them otherwise. And the entire premise of the “sharing economy” is the increased utilization of assets – like cars, tools, and spare bedrooms – all made possible by the network.
The outcomes will be profound: fewer cars on the street as mobility-on-demand replaces private vehicles; fewer office towers and hotels as the network makes it easier to find and share under-utilized offices or apartments, leading to space-as-a-service rather than 10-year leases; and commerce everywhere, courtesy of devices like Square. The real challenge will be faced by governments, as a hyper-networked city looks an awful lot like the informal settlement of megacities in the Global South – in which everything is an unregulated asset to be negotiated. Securing the safety and rights of citizens in such a world is a daunting task, to say the least. We’re just beginning to grapple with the issues.
With most of humanity living in cities – and so many in megacities – how do you see the evolution of how we interact with each other?
The physicist Luis Bettencourt recently described cities as “social reactors”. They compress dense, overlapping social networks of people in space and time, and the fusion of those networks – much like the sun produces light and heat – forms new ideas, social cohesion, economic growth, and so on. The best cities, in other words, are the ones that are most effective at bringing appropriately diverse groups of people together. They produce the experience of serendipity. This is what makes dense cities and public space so powerful; it’s what makes a city a city.
So how can we accelerate that fusion? ICT definitely has a role to play, especially now that our social networks are increasingly visible thanks to the combination of smartphones and social media. I believe the killer urban app is one that can reveal the strangers around me, connecting me to people whose acquaintance I might never have otherwise met. Call it “serendipity-as-a-service”.
» Folllow me on Twitter.
» Email me.
» See upcoming events.
Greg Lindsay is a generalist, urbanist, futurist, and speaker. He is a non-resident senior fellow of the Arizona State University Threatcasting Lab, a non-resident senior fellow of MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, and a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative. He was the founding chief communications officer of Climate Alpha and remains a senior advisor. Previously, he was an urban tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, where he explored the implications of AI and augmented reality at urban scale.
January 31, 2024
Unfrozen: Domo Arigatou, “Mike 2.0”
January 22, 2024
The Future of Generative AI in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
January 18, 2024
The Promise and Perils of the Augmented City
January 13, 2024
Henley & Partners: Generative AI, Human Labor, and Mobility
----- | January 22, 2024
The Future of Generative AI in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
----- | January 1, 2024
----- | August 3, 2023
CityLab | June 12, 2023
Augmented Reality Is Coming for Cities
CityLab | April 25, 2023
The Line Is Blurring Between Remote Workers and Tourists
CityLab | December 7, 2021
The Dark Side of 15-Minute Grocery Delivery
Fast Company | June 2021
Why the Great Lakes need to be the center of our climate strategy
Fast Company | March 2020
How to design a smart city that’s built on empowerment–not corporate surveillance
URBAN-X | December 2019
CityLab | December 10, 2018
The State of Play: Connected Mobility in San Francisco, Boston, and Detroit
Harvard Business Review | September 24, 2018
Why Companies Are Creating Their Own Coworking Spaces
CityLab | July 2018
The State of Play: Connected Mobility + U.S. Cities
Medium | May 1, 2017
Fast Company | January 19, 2017
The Collaboration Software That’s Rejuvenating The Young Global Leaders Of Davos
The Guardian | January 13, 2017
What If Uber Kills Public Transport Instead of Cars
Backchannel | January 4, 2017
The Office of the Future Is… an Office
New Cities Foundation | October 2016
Now Arriving: A Connected Mobility Roadmap for Public Transport
Inc. | October 2016
Why Every Business Should Start in a Co-Working Space
Popular Mechanics | May 11, 2016
Can the World’s Worst Traffic Problem Be Solved?
The New Republic | January/February 2016